Tony Richardson's film started as a stage production in London, and it still has much of the ambience of London's Roundhouse Theatre and the second half of the 1960s.
Nicol Williamson's Hamlet is edgy, frenetic, and sometimes downright peculiar. This is Hamlet as an angry young man, except that Williamson does not look at all that young in comparison to Anthony Hopkins as Claudius and Judy Parfitt as Gertrude. Williamson's unusual appearance, strange energy, and North country accent mark him as a rebel who means to bring down the establishment.
Hopkins and Parfitt as the morally, politically, and sexually corrupt Claudius and Gertrude provide a sufficiently wicked establishment to justify any amount of self-righteous rebellion.
Nicol Williamson's Hamlet is edgy, frenetic, and sometimes downright peculiar. This is Hamlet as an angry young man, except that Williamson does not look at all that young in comparison to Anthony Hopkins as Claudius and Judy Parfitt as Gertrude. Williamson's unusual appearance, strange energy, and North country accent mark him as a rebel who means to bring down the establishment.
Hopkins and Parfitt as the morally, politically, and sexually corrupt Claudius and Gertrude provide a sufficiently wicked establishment to justify any amount of self-righteous rebellion.